Google Voice is back in all its app glory for the iPhone, thanks to two new approved apps.

Apple lets Google Voice into its magical kingdom

Google
Voice has at last landed on the iPhone in full app form. Long
available with the Android platform, which currently outsells
the iPhone in the U.S., Apple wasn't
quite as kind to the Google product.

The service's
ability to use a mobile carrier's data plan to send cheaper SMS texts
and international phone calls irked both Apple and its carrier
partners like AT&T. An official Google Voice app was
quickly removed from the app store. Google responded
by releasing
a web app, with some of the original functionality.

Meanwhile
numerous app versions floated around on the underground app store
Cydia. To run these versions, you needed a jailbroken phone,
though.

Now two full Google Voice solutions have made their
way to the official iTunes App Store. Both are third-party
products, using Google's API. The two apps -- GV
Mobile + and GV
Connect -- have similar functionality, allowing users to
access their Google voicemail box and use their iPhone phonebook,
both to make and receive calls via their Google Voice number, and to
send and receive texts using their Google Voice number.

Both
have support landscape mode and the higher resolution iPhone 4's
Retina Display.

Remember, if you frequently use the app it
makes pretty heavy use of your data plan. That could spell
trouble given AT&T's
low 2 GB/month data caps and high overage fees.

"We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng's take on patent troll Soverain